26 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER. 



would be up feeding the horses from 3.30 or 4 o'clock a.m., 

 and working in the fields until six o'clock or dusk. The only 

 holidays known were the hiring fairs, or the horse and cattle 

 fairs ; the only recreations were the club, or the chapel 

 and church festivals. The very devout thought nothing 

 of walking miles to a prayer meeting, even over the hills in 

 bad weather. 



" My father," a friend tells me, " once walked thirty 

 miles fifteen miles each way to a prayer meeting. My 

 mother would hide his boots in the attempt to prevent him 

 from going. He read nothing but his Bible, and could 

 recite long passages from memory. Newspapers he never 

 read ; not even for the prices beasts and wool were fetching. 

 He got his knowledge from the ordinary market-day 

 gossip." 



Education, when obtainable, consisted of reading, writing, 

 the catechism and elementary arithmetic. 



It was usual for one man on each large farm to act as 

 barber, cutting the hair of all the men, and even that of the 

 farmer's family. New clothes were an event, and lasted 

 many years. The tailor would come to a farm and stay 

 several days. The parlour fire would be lit by the housewife 

 and he would sit there all day by himself perched cross- 

 legged on the table making clothes. 



In the thrifty farmer's house the stockings and socks 

 would be knitted at home from the wool obtained from 

 his own sheep. Very little coal was burned. Fuel was 

 obtained from the hedges and woods and those who still 

 possessed brick ovens for baking bread cut gorse from the 

 hills. 



Courting, in Herefordshire and Rutland in those 

 strenuous days, my friend tells me, was mostly done 

 during the night. The lover would set out for the 

 home of his sweetheart about nine or ten o'clock. If 

 unexpected, he would inform her of his arrival by a shower 

 of gravel thrown against her bedroom window. She would 

 dress and come down, replenish the kitchen fire and make 

 him a meal. They would spend the night thus ; the man 

 returning home in the early hours of the morning. If he 



